The Dolohov Problem
by darklydraco
Summary: During DeathHal. Dark!Draco, a rising officer of the Revolution and Lord of Malfoy Manor, contemplates strategic rape, experiments with reanimation, and flirts with a snake. Warnings for graphic violence, rape, bestiality. DM/SS, others NCS. Part 1 of 3.


_During DeathHal. Dark!Draco, a rising officer of the Revolution and Lord of Malfoy Manor, contemplates strategic rape, experiments with reanimation, and flirts with a snake. Warnings for graphic violence, rape, bestiality. DM/SS, and other NCS pairings. Part 1 of 3._

_Obviously anything that looks familiar belongs to JKR._

_A note to anyone who's following Into the Woods: this story right here is to blame for distracting me from being my usual, reliable self. So now that at least the first part of it is out of my system, I'll be back to work on ITW._

* * *

**The Dolohov Problem**

**Part One**

'_You are not a killer.'_

The words echoed in his head and he scoffed as he sent the seeking charm through the house. Two rooms occupied, one to the left, one to the right. He followed the first green thread of light into the room on the left and confirmed what he'd suspected. They'd done a house in this neighbourhood a few months ago and he was pretty sure this was the same layout. Mum and Dad were sleeping, spooned.

He followed the other ghostly thread to the room to the right. The girl was probably about eight or nine. He walked up to the side of her bed and slowly pulled back the covers to reveal mousy brown hair pale cheeks on a soft pink pillow. Her skin was fair, and she had faint freckles on her cheeks. In her arms she clutched a ragged-looking raccoon, or was it supposed to be a bear? He gazed at her, aware that he needed to hurry, really, but reluctant. He chided himself for his weakness.

After a few long minutes, he pointed his wand at the girl's temple, muttering a few words, and slowly the silver wisps of her thoughts, her memories, her entire life, swirled up out of her mind, and Draco collected all of it, every last strand - so little of it there, she was so young. He tucked the vial into his robes. He glanced at the clock on her wall, then he pulled out a little red dragon-hide notebook and wrote: _Female, age 8, Manchester. AK: 10:00pm._

Draco cast the curse silently. Green light shot out of his wand and into her, and although she didn't move at all, he knew that she was gone.

Now for the hard part.

His own three-step protocol: a warming spell, a preservation potion, and a muscle-memory charm. That last one was the toughest, because it called for considerable prediction on Draco's part, and he could never be sure. He pulled out the syringe and raised his wand.

Spell, potion, spell. Done.

Some of the Darkest magic known to wizardkind, and Draco had it down to seven minutes flat.

He sighed, jotting another note: _prot. admin: 10:07. _Then turned and cast silencing charms on the upper floor and snuck back down to opened the front door to the bitterly cold November chill. He touched the tip of his wand to his left forearm and the snake there darkened to black and writhed excitedly. Draco murmured gently to it, and tickled under its chin. A tiny inked tongue flicked out at his finger.

The others arrived in seconds, swooshing in a flurry of black smoke. Avery, Bradshaw, and… Nott. Damn. This could take all night. As each man filed in, they looked directly into his eyes and nodded in deference. Draco gave each a curt nod back. Each one of these men were the fathers of former classmates but they were his to command tonight. That wasn't unusual, but Nott and Avery tended to compete and Draco did not need the headache right now.

They followed him to the landing upstairs. He watched the filing onto the landing and decided to head off the conflict.

"Nott," he said, and the man looked up, eager, "take the girl."

A gasp of barely-disguised delight escaped from Nott's lips and he bowed deeply before disappearing into the child's room.

What did it matter? She was dead already.

Nott wouldn't notice, of course. They never did. The warming charm and the short-term preservation potion would keep the corpse fresh for a few hours. The muscle memory charm would activate on contact with any magical aura other than Draco's. The recorded screams and thrashes that played across the dead girl's body, the forced breath that would passed through her vocal chords, giving the dead girl a last screaming voice – it was all real enough. They could never tell the difference. Sometimes, even Draco forgot that it wasn't real. Not anymore.

He didn't always let them. The protocol was a precaution, in case he had a particularly sadistic group. His position with the others was still precarious enough out in the field that it paid to occasionally reward them. The rest of the time, the spells would go unnoticed and would expire before anyone ever found the bodies.

Draco had not spared the parents. He never did. It was impractical, for one, because there was no way he could create a muscle-memory charm to predict the course of an interrogation. It had taken all summer for him to get the child-screaming-while-raped-and-tortured charm right. And then, only with the potion, which itself had taken weeks of surreptitious research. The protocol had been operational since August, but it was still only effective for children.

The others took their time with Mum and Dad. The interogation lasted half and hour, and of course they knew nothing. Avery and Bradshaw were still playing with them when Nott reappeared. The muscle-memory charm worked with a reagent in the potion that ran out pretty quickly, making it appear that she had expired from his treatment. She would start getting colder now. Nott walked up smelling foul and muttered something to Draco, adding "Sir," and Draco nodded his approval, before allowing Nott to pass into the bedroom.

Draco rarely watched once the interrogation was over. He had what he needed, the rest was for the hired help to deal with. He stood leaning against the wall in the hallway with his arms crossed and a bored look on his face, trying to suppress the nausea. Always nausea. He'd learned not to eat before runs like this one, but tonight had been on short notice. He'd almost forgotten the potion.

That had happened once or twice before, and even though you can take the mind out of someone and leave them alive but blank, which was better than alive and truly conscious, it wasn't ideal. Better to kill and temporarily reanimate them. Even a blank mind suffers under rape and torture.

Ironic, really, that it was this Darkest of Dark Arts that Draco was using to undermine his orders.

He quickly corrected that thought. No, he wasn't undermining anything, he was a loyal servant of the Dark Lord and he was simply following orders creatively. Draco chose not to think too hard about why.

Instead he thought about the vial in his robes. He imagined what he'd find. Sometimes the memories were so brief and poignant. Rarely, but it happened now and then, they were horrific, and when that happened he felt, stupidly, worse. Worse for having ended a childhood of suffering. Absurd.

He stepped lightly down the hall and peered into the girl's bedroom again. His stomach lurched and he closed his eyes, swallowing hard, and willing down the vomit. When he had mastered his weakness, he opened his eyes and began to catalogue the scene methodically.

Blood splattered on the wall. The child's naked body tied to the bed, face down. Between her legs, blood, semen, urine, and feces. His preservation charm was wearing off now. There was little more blood than usual; he probably did her both ways, Draco reflected. He glanced at the clock again and pulled out his red notebook to write: _Prot. exp: 11:23pm. Restraint, rape (v,a)._

Two fingers appeared to be missing from her left hand. He walked around the bed and found them – one jabbed into each of the bloody sockets where her eyes had been. He added to his notes: _partial dismemberment, ocular excision._

He stared at the notebook, nearly full, now. Full of entries just like this one. That, he told himself, is why he bothered with the protocol.

He closed his eyes again and walked back to the master bedroom. The others fell silent. He looked at Avery and said,

"Do it."

Two flashes of green light hit the muggles square in the chest, and they both fell from their kneeling positions, eyes open and empty.

Draco looked at each of them for a second, then turned on his heel, the others following dutifully behind him. Outside, he cast the Mark over the house and lifted the silencing charms, and they apparated back to the Manor.

The Dark Lord was waiting for them in the Dining Hall, seated at the head of the long table with his back to the massive black marble fire-place where a bright green fire burned.

His men turned to him and Draco nodded to Avery, who stepped up to the Dark Lord's chair when beckoned and answered the cursory questions while the other two stood behind him and nodded. Yes, we found them. Yes, they are taken care of. No, they didn't have any information. No, we weren't seen. Always the same.

Draco stood by the door examining his nails. When the others had been dismissed, a cold, high voice called out,

"Draco," he looked up to see the red eyes seeking his. He stepped forward without hurry. Feel satisfaction, he told himself, drawing on his real satisfaction and using it to disguise the wall of his Occlumency.

The Dark Lord stretched out His hand and Draco knelt to kiss it, and press his forehead to the cold white knuckles. Draco gazed up at Him through thick blond lashed. Cold white fingers came up to brush a lock of Draco's blond hair out of his eyes.

"Well done, my son," He said, and then a cool palm cupped his cheek tenderly.

"Thank you, my Lord," he replied in a reverent whisper.

Draco then took the seat he was offered beside the Dark Lord at the dining table. Draco's dining table. In Draco's Manor. Because when Draco replaced Lucius, he had claimed that right, and the Dark Lord had underwritten his usurpation.

He took the time, now, the glance around the room. The Dining Hall was long and narrow, with a two-storey tall arching ceiling. Black marble floors reflected the green fire and the dark stone walls. There were once paintings and tapestries hanging from those walls, but Draco had had them removed and safely stowed away when the Manor became headquarters.

Now the walls were bare except for half a dozen corpses in transparent sacs of preservation potion hanging near the ceiling. The luminous placental cocoons were part of Draco's official research for the Revolution: perfecting the inferi-creation process. The Dark Lord humoured him by allowing him to keep them here in the Hall where the temperature was reliably cool enough.

Additional chairs lined the walls of the spacious room, and huddles of cloaked followers stood in the wings whispering and watching, waiting to be called to the table. Occasionally one would glance up at the hanging sacs high above them, and shudder.

"Lord Malfoy," came a voice from the door, and Draco turned slowly to the, but not before shooting a cruel smirk at Lucius, who, standing in the wings, had looked up out of habit.

"Yes?" Draco asked, and the messenger, a recently acquired squib slave, came in, bowed to the Dark Lord, and dropped low to whisper to Draco.

"Yes, that's fine. Let me know," he answered, waving him away. The squib hesitated, then reiterated the question, and Draco raised his voice when he replied, "Yes!" and the squib cowered and fled.

Draco answered the Dark Lord's amused, curious look, saying "Kitchens. Honestly, the whole staff is incompetent." And then he added, his voice slightly raised for Lucius' benefit, "Too many years under poor management, I think."

The Dark Lord chuckled: a harsh sound. It had taken Draco a while to recognise it as a sort of laughter, which Draco seemed to have a gift for eliciting. It was remarkably easy, in fact, because Draco seemed to have fallen into step after his father – giving the Dark Lord the validation of an ancient and respected family name, and all the wealth that accompanied it.

Draco played the aristocrat well, and it leant an air of sophistication to everything they were endeavouring to do. But he was careful, very, very careful, always to defer to the Dark Lord.

Fortunately, the Dark Lord had already developed an extremely effective way of undermining Draco in front of the others whenever He wished to reprimand him: Dolohov.

All He needed to do is mention that first weekend after Draco had returned from Hogwarts with Snape, and the room would fill with snickers.

This was 'fortunate' because it meant there was no need to come up with some new and creative way to torture and emasculate him.

Draco had long since redeemed himself for not killing Dumbledore. That had been easy to do. Well, not easy, but anyway, doable. At least he'd mastered his _avada_ now, so, that was useful. And anyway, Dumbledore did die, and Draco managed to smuggle seven Death Eaters into Hogwarts right under the old man's nose, which was impressive by any standard.

But the humiliation of a public rape – that was a tougher stain to erase. The most expedient way to negate it would be to rape and murder Dolohov in public, but that would require the Dark Lord's blessing, which he would not be able to get unless Dolohov seriously fucked up, which he hadn't yet.

Although frankly, Draco thought that catching Potter and letting him escape, again, the night that the New Ministry was established, was a pretty major fuck up. Of course, the Dark Lord Himself had done just that more times than Draco dared count.

Luckily no one else had dared to bring up the Dolohov thing for a long time. Not since Draco had begun leading missions in August. Not since the Dark Lord had begun to brush his blond hair out of his eyes in public.

He gazed over at the Dark Lord, now in conversation with Nagini. It had taken Draco more than a few months to get used to the snake, but he was quite fond of her now. As fond as one can be of a 20 ft long talking snake who swallows people whole. Anyway she quite liked him, which, although alarming at first, had grown to be a source of extreme satisfaction in front of the others, who were, as a rule, deathly afraid of the beast.

It was particularly gratifying whenever Aunt Bella was around: Nagini hated Bella. And Bella hated Draco. Really, he and the snake were natural allies.

He watched the hissing and clicking passing between the Dark Lord and His familiar. If he closed his eyes and really focused, he could just pick up a few words drifting over to him. '_The girl_'… '_traitor_'… and something that sounded like '_grave yard_' but might have been '_home_,' as the two words are nearly homophonous in Parseltongue.

Magical interspecies languages are quite rare, and Parseltongue in particular is such a heavily guarded secret that only a few very Dark tomes existed on the subject. Draco's gift for languages and Nagini's favouritism had inspired the Dark Lord to assign Draco the task of learning Parseltongue, if possible. Very few wizards in history had ever mastered it who were not born with the gift, and Draco was determined to number among them.

Nagini, of course, understood English (and apparently several other human languages) but the project he and she would be undertaking next month really necessitated communication, and the Dark Lord had no time to sit around and translate for them. Moreover, it was a dangerously erotic language, and listening to them converse alone tended to be so arousing that Draco often found it impossible to concentrate.

He tried to drown them out again now because he was already half-hard. Fortunately the room was filled with spectators murmuring in the wings, and Draco couldn't hear enough to pick up much more anyway.

A crack drew his attention to the floor beside his chair, where an elf bowed low to address him. "Lord Malfoy," he began, "Dinner is being finished, my Lord, Sir."

Draco sat up and the Dark Lord nodded. Draco stood and looked around the room expectantly until the others hushed. All eyes turned to him, and he savoured the pleasurable tingle of authority for a fraction of a second before announcing, "Dinner is served," and instantly plates, bowls, and goblets materialized, followed by dished laden with roast bird, glazed ham, puddings, sauces, salads, and mounds of steamed vegetables.

Draco had insisted that the Manor serve regular meals like decent, respectable people, something his father probably would not have bothered to do. Of course, the meals were suited to the Dark Lord's rather nocturnal schedule: the main dinner for the evening was served no earlier than midnight. Draco had acquired three squibs and seven new house-elves to accommodate the need for meals throughout the day, according to the Dark Lord's whim. It wasn't uncommon for a banquet to be ordered at three in the morning. Draco viewed it as part of his role as aristocratic host to a revolutionary warlord. What good is using an ancient seat of wealth and power to launch a Revolution if you don't take full advantage?

The others came and seated themselves now. Nagini slithered onto the floor under the table to terrorize the twitchy ones. Thicknesse strolled in from the floo in time to sit down beside the Dark Lord and across from Draco, whom he ignored as usual. Draco sneered in his general direction. Thicknesse found Draco's presence at this end of the table extremely disagreeable, and Draco enjoyed flaunting his position as often as possible.

Beside him sat Yaxley, Avery, Nott, Bella, Draco's Mother, and Lucius. The seat beside Draco was empty, and beside it Bentley, Harper, Bradshaw, Fenrir, and next to him, the Carrows.

Severus floated in from the main doors and without even looking up, Draco slid gracefully to the next chair over to make room for him beside the Dark Lord.

Severus glided gracefully into his chair, greeted his Lord, nodded stiffly at Thicknesse, and glowered down the table. When the Dark Lord and Thicknesse returned to their discussion, Severus finally turned to Draco.

"Professor," Draco said softly.

"Lord Malfoy," Severus responded, his expression inscrutable.

Dark eyes pierced his silver ones and for a moment Draco was transported to a small, dark room full of dusty books and the sound of quietly bubbling cauldrons.

Suddenly, a cold, scaly tail tickled at his foot, then wrapped its way up his right leg, stroking his thigh. Draco tensed his leg, and the tail tensed back with a little more force than strictly necessary. He winced. The Dark Lord looked over, conversation with Thicknesse abandoned, and the tail released Draco's leg to be replaced by a massive head, jaws the wider than Draco's hips, now slinking up his thigh and into his lap, pushing his chair back from the table a few inches. Severus watched the massive snake with a thoughtful frown. The Dark Lord smiled vaguely, and looked away.

Draco smirked, and stroked her under the chin the way she liked, and the massive eyes, each the size of a man's fist, closed. Her cold leathery nose nuzzled inside of his robes and a cold red tongue flicked up under his shirt to tickle his sides, and Draco suppressed a laugh. For a man-eating monster, she really was quite the flirt. She lifted her head up as more of the massive, scaly body slithered up onto his lap. She licked at his cheek, rubbed her jaw around the back of his neck like a cat, then curled herself around his shoulders, her head landing back in his lap again to nuzzle him inside his robes. The weight was enough to force him back against the chair, and he slumped under the pressure of her massive coil around his shoulder.

He glanced up at his Lord, who was watching with undisguised approval now, and Draco grinned in spite of himself. It was an open, honest grin, partly from the tickling, partly from the pleasure of the weight of her writhing body wrapped around him. It had been so long since anyone other than the snake had touched him like this, had wrapped around him. Even the Dark Lord only brushed him. Sometimes, when He was feeling generous, He would cup Draco's cheek, or brush His cold thumb gently over his chin, and Draco would close his eyes and relish the gentleness, the imitation of warmth. The impression of a soft hand against his face often lingered all day, and he clung to it, drew on it. And for some reason, whenever Nagini touched him, it felt like the Dark Lord was doing it, too. Like she was an extension of Him, of His will. They were closer than most Wizards are with their familiars.

Nagini lifted her massive head and licked Draco's ear before she settled her head back onto his lap, and his cock gave an interested twitch. The Dark Lord eyed him with something like amusement, and Draco turned away from the piercing red gaze, his face growing warm.

He turned to see Lucius watching the snake with a look of terrified disgust. Draco smirked. Displays of affection from Nagini had grown more bold in the last month and had contributed greatly to his standing among the others. He gazed disdainfully around the table and registered envy, fear, and revulsion. Excellent.

Nagini eventually grew restless, and slithered off of him onto the table to terrify the guests. Charming thing, really, Draco reflected.

She stopped in front of Bella and hissed. Bella tensed, trying to hide her discomfort. Draco chuckled audibly, and her eyes snapped over to him, before returning to eye the snake warily.

Bella was probably Draco's closest rival at this point. Both favourites for personal reasons, both feared by the others. Draco had no idea the extent of the Dark Lord's relationship with her. Everyone assumed she was His whore, but they assumed that about Draco, too, and in his case it wasn't true. Not yet, anyway.

And Draco did have real, tangible responsibilities that made him more than the Dark Lord's pretty cabin-boy. For one, he was Lord of the Manor that was now the Headquarters.

And Draco's missions were important to the Revolution: hunting down and killing mudblood children and their parents was part of an overall extermination program that was slowly but surely being put into place. Right now the New Ministry was calling in people to defend their blood status and setting Dementors on anyone who couldn't prove themselves to have descended from a witch or wizard. Draco tried not to have an opinnion on the program, one way or the other, because if he gave it too much thought, he would see the face of Potter's pet mudblood and the accompanying twist in his gut was usually enough to ruin the whole day.

He was also neck-deep in inferi-development research which would be vital in the coming confrontation. And, as it turns out, he was an effective commander of otherwise disorderly and out-of-control Death Eaters who were naturally too self-serving to be effective as a group.

But Draco wasn't minister, and he wasn't a spy, or even an ex-spy. Somehow Severus had managed to retain most of his contacts even after he was expelled from the Order, and still managed to retain his position. He was now running the school, of course. And plenty of others had important jobs, too. Yaxley was coordinating the snatcher squads, Fenrir was managing three or four different packs of loyal werewolves and systematically filling out his ranks with strategic infections.

So if it weren't for Nagini taking a liking to him, Draco would probably he in a place more like they were.

He lifted his glass and tasted the wine he'd selected for the meal. It was a full-bodied red that would go well with the duck. Oaky with a hint of blueberries. A bit of it dribbled onto his chin and when he flicked out his tongue to catch it he heard Severus' breath catch beside him. A quick glance to the Dark Lord revealed He was once again deep in conversation with Thicknesse and Yaxley. Draco glanced down the table – Nagini was tormenting Fenrir, who looked like he might vomit.

Draco slipped one hand off of his lap and let it hang down between his chair and Severus'. After a few agonizing minutes, he felt warm dry fingers grasping his, and a thrilling jolt of heat shot through his body as he was drawn back into that dark, dusty room that smelled like books and potions.

It only lasted a second or two. No more. They could risk no more. Not here. Not anywhere.

And Draco wasn't really sure what 'more' he wanted.

It had started over the summer, when he was just starting his research. The lingering gaze. The brush of fingers. A warm hand on his lower back – so rare in his life before, and entirely absent now.

It was the warmth that made it different from the Dark Lord's cold white fingers against his cheek, or Nagini's cool weight wrapping around him. He relished that contact, too, in it's own way, but it was nothing compared to the heat coming off of Snape when he sat so close, so very close. Yet the inches between them might just as well have been miles. Miles and miles of frozen wasteland.

The floo flared and Draco looked up. Immediately, his jaw clenched when he recognized the latecomer. Dolohov. Fuck.

The rest of the evening passed agonisingly slowly. Three muggles were murdered, and hung on the walls under long-term preservation potions. Two low-ranking Death Eaters were crucioed for some infraction or other. Draco was too irked by Dolohov's presence to enjoy any of it.

The Dolohov problem occupied his thoughts even when the bastard wasn't around. Draco had spent every minute since that day scratching and climbing his way to the top of the Death Eater food chain, but so far he had only come up with a two possible solutions to it.

1.) He could rape and murder Dolohov publically, but he'd need a good reason.

2.) He could secretly dispose of Dolohov, or see to it that he was killed, and then carry out a strategic public rape, but it could not be just anyone. Certainly not one of his victims.

Draco never raped his victims. Raping a muggle, or some mudblood or blood-traitor, wouldn't raise his status anyway. And absolutely everything he did was about status. It's not the only reason he refrained, he admitted to himself reluctantly, but he chose not to dwell on that.

So, it would have to be someone from within, ideally someone who ranked above Draco. That would have been easier to manage a few months ago, but now Draco found himself sitting beside the Dark Lord, an established member His inner circle, just as Lucius had once been. So unless Draco had a death wish, there were few viable candidates.

Draco scowled and tried to distract himself by watching the public torture, but it wasn't helping.

Finally, around three in the morning, he was dismissed and left for his private quarters. Draco slept in the Master Suite now, and the Dark Lord occupied in the Quarters reserved for Guests of Honour, immediately next door. Claiming Lucius' room had been essential to Draco usurpation project. When the Dark Lord officially moved His head-quarters to the Manor at Draco's invitation, Draco had of course offered Him the Master Suite but the Dark Lord had opted for this arrangement for reasons known only to Him. Possibly it was a move to validate Draco's position.

Draco paced around the room. The fire was burning and the green velvet comforter and black silk sheets were already turned down for him. But Draco couldn't sleep. He settled into a chair in front of his fireplace and summoned a decanter of whiskey and a tumbler from the bar on the far wall.

He began listing candidates for his solution to the Dolohov problem. Unfortunately he always came back to Lucius.

Truly, Lucius was probably his best option, and he'd known that for some time now, which is why he called him Lucius in his head. Lucius, the fallen favourite, the ousted lord, a prisoner in his own house. Lucius, erstwhile aggressor, bound and dominated by his own usurping son. In his case, his fallen state would not diminish the potential boost in status for Draco, because of their familial relationship.

It would be perfectly terrifying – a bold move to assert his dominance and solidify his claim to the Dark Lord's respect as more than a hit-man/cabin-boy.

But Lucius hadn't done anything to deserve it yet, so Draco would have to wait. And he would still need to get rid of Dolohov. So many obstacles. He drank again, and refilled the glass.

More to the point, if he succeeded in erasing the Dolohov tarnish, the Dark Lord would have to find something else to use, and it would probably be worse. Which is another reason why Draco hadn't killed Dolohov yet. Because as long as Draco remained submissive to the Dark Lord both publically and privately (if it came to that), he could be assertive in his leadership role within the Revolution without the risk of serious retaliation from Him.

And that really got to the heart of the matter. Because no matter what Draco did to manoeuvre himself up the ladder, Dolohov-as-rapist was only an extension of the Dark Lord Himself.

Draco rarely permitted his thoughts to run in this dangerous direction, because whenever he started thinking about it, he stopping thinking in terms of political manipulation and starting thinking words like 'vengeance.'

And to truly avenge himself, he'd have to overthrow the Dark Lord and in a way that somehow involved castration.

Draco moved to take another drink and found he'd drained the glass again. He poured himself a third glass, and swallowed the burning liquid down his throat.

And then what? Would he become Draco Malfoy, the New Dark Lord? He could easily see himself standing above the minions of Death Eaters, bowing before him. He could almost feel the tingling in his fingertips at the thought of the power, the all-encompassing power. Power that was his to command. The thought alone was enough to make him half-hard again. What would he do?

It was a rhetorical question. If he closed his eyes and saw himself standing on a frozen hillock, one foot on corpse of his Lord, with the cowering masses of murderers, sadists, and rapists at his beck and call, the scene always ends the same way.

Three broad slashes of his wand across the crowd and one by one, each and every one of them falls to the ground, heads rolling away across the frozen tundra. He stands there, slashed with blood, flushed with victory and arousal, watching them all die. A massacre. A Death Eater blood-bath. He watches every last one of them die.

The curse he would use is one with which he was intimately familiar; Severus had taught him it after Potter nearly killed him with it last year.

For some reason, at this point in the fantasy, which he'd replayed many, many times in the dark hours of his darkest nights, a warm hand always grasps his and he turns to peer into Severus' dark eyes, and squeezes.

"It's over," Severus says to him. And then…

Draco shifted in his seat to adjust the erection now throbbing in his trousers. He swallowed the rest of his drink and allowed the bitter alcohol to warm him, fill him, lull him, as he reached down to open his trousers and release his aching cock, when, suddenly, he felt the horrible slip of someone, someone _else,_ in his mind. His stomach seized, his mind closed.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught the billow of bat-like robes disappearing through the doorway.

Severus.

Immediately Draco bolted from his chair and raced out of the room but the hallway outside was empty. He rushed past the Guest Quarters suppressing the fear that Severus might have gone directly to the Dark Lord, and instead rushed on down the long carpeted hallway lined with doors, until he reached the stairs.

He had just arrived at the first landing when he felt a something grab his robes and pull him sideways behind the massive drapes that hung there covering a little alcove with a narrow window once used for defence. A strong hand covered his mouth and prevented him from calling out, and the other pinned his arm behind his back. He couldn't turn around and see his attacker, and fear began to surge through him. He wriggled and fought, but his attacker was much stronger and shoved him against the cold stone wall.

His legs were kicked apart, and he felt a warm body stepping up behind him, and he was about to truly panic, when a curtain of black hair fell over his shoulder and warm breath ghosted over his neck.

And then a low voice whispering harshly, "Draco."

Draco stilled in his arms then, and the hands gripping him slackened. He turned around to gaze up into dark pools burning with a look that sent shivers down his spine and straight to his cock.

"Severus," he whispered, barely audible over the beating of his own blood in his ears. How much did he see, he wanted to ask, but he couldn't, because suddenly lips were crashing against his, opening, tasting, probing. Burning heat seared through his body as strong arms encircled him and strong fingers threaded roughly through his hair. He ground his hips against the warmth pressing into him, hands fumbling to open those oppressive black robes and get closer to the source of all that heat. Then Severus released his mouth to bite along his jaw, somehow wriggling a hand down between them to cup Draco's cock through his trousers. He gasped and arched into that warm palm, desperately seeking more friction, and when he reached out to grasp Severus' arse and pull him closer, Severus growled and bit down, hard, on his collarbone. Somehow his hand slipped into Draco pants and long fingers wrapped deftly around his cock. Draco thrust shamelessly into the tight, hot ring and buried his face in Severus' neck to stifled a moan.

"_Gods_, Severus, I want... _need _to… nnng gah… fuck, _please_…" he murmured against the hot, hot skin behind Severus' ear, and he felt the man shiver. The thought that he could make Severus Snape shiver was enough to send him rolling over the edge of his orgasm and he thrust jerkily twice more, come pumping out through Severus' fingers into his pants and up across his lower belly.

He was still panting as he reached for Severus, seeking mouth and cock, but the warmth was already withdrawing. Severus stepped back, eyes wide and a finger to his lips, and then Draco heard it, too. A low hissing sound from the floor above.

Nagini.

She would be coming to his rooms to sleep beside him, as she had been for the last few weeks. Severus must have known, because he threw him one last look, eyes still dark with desire but his expression veiled again, before he ducked away down the stairs and into the darkness.

Draco stared after him for a moment, but dared no more, before turning back up the stairs to see the snake now slithering through the door to his bedroom. She had curled up at the foot of his bed by the time he entered and closed the door behind him. His clothes were readjusted, his hair smoothed, though his lips were undoubtedly still swollen.

She raised her head from her massive coils and nuzzled his hand when he reached out to stroke her. Her cold wet muzzle pressed into his palm and her coils writhed a little, before she began seeking through the layers of his robe to find the bare skin of his stomach. She dragged her forehead over the skin, leathery scales cool to the touch. When her tongue flicked at the waistband of his trousers, she paused, and Draco was sure she had found his spilled seed, and his cock twitched to life again.

She pulled away and raised her head level to his, cocked to side, and looked at him curiously. Draco's heart was pounding in his chest and he was probably blushing but he tried his best to breath slowly.

Apparently satisfied, the massive snake returned to nuzzling his belly as he shrugged off his robes and pulled his shirt up over his head. Dagger-sized fangs nipped playfully along his hip bone and tugged at his trousers until he finally unbuttoned them and let them fall to the floor, toeing out of his shoes.

Immediately, her cold wet tongue began the slither along his lower belly, lapping up the still-wet stains of his come, drawing up the slick remnants of his furtive encounter. She licked methodically, dropping lower, long tongue laving his growing erection, sliding into the groove of each thigh, dipping behind his sac to slide across his perineum. Draco closed his eyes and shivered - he was achingly hard again. The snake hissed, "_yes" _and Draco reached down to fist himself, furiously stroking as the cold tongue slithered over his dripping head, and he felt his orgasm torn from his as hot ropes of his come shot down into her open throat. Draco shuddered, his knees buckling under him, and he leaned against the bed, dazed and overwhelmed by pleasure.

Suddenly a muscular tail wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides and squeezing just a little too tightly, and yanked him up onto the bed. He lay there on his back, trapped and gasping, and when he sought out the snake's eyes they were blazing. A cold trickle of fear ran down his spine.

The massive head, three times the size of his own, came up to loom over him, and she looked him in the eye, her mouth opening to reveal white fangs glinting in the firelight. Before he could even register it, she had launched at him, driving one of her fangs deep into the tissue of his right shoulder, then clamping down. He heard a sickening crunch and knew that she had snapped his collarbone like a dry twig. The pain radiated down his arm and through his back, warm blood bubbling out onto his pale skin and soaking the sheets as she withdrew.

She loomed over him and he struggled to remain conscious as her red eyes, so much like her Masters', peered down at him. She hissed, annunciating so he would be sure to understand, "_foolish boy."_

Then she withdrew her coils and slithered out of the room.

Draco rolled over off of the edge of the bed and rifled with his good arm through the heap of robes on the floor until he found his wand. He tried to swallow the blood now filling his mouth, and raised the wand with a shaky hand, mustering every ounce of magical energy he could find. A beam of white light burst from his wand and formed a transparent, shimmering crow before disappearing through the door. Draco collapsed onto the floor, shaking violently, and slipped into the drowning dark.


End file.
